The party having arrived at the camp, the chief leaned against a tree and, balancing on one foot, drew off a rubber boot. From this boot he emptied about a quart of snow. He squeezed his stocking, which had a hole from which protruded a lobster-red toe. He resumed his boot. “Bring up the prisoner,” said he. They did it. “Guilty or not guilty?” he asked.
“Huh?” said the Phelps boy.
“Guilty or not guilty?” demanded the chief, peremptorily. “Guilty or not guilty? Don’t you understand?”
Homer Phelps looked profoundly puzzled. “Guilty or not guilty?” he asked, slowly and weakly.
The chief made a swift gesture, and turned in despair to the others. “Oh, he don’t do it right! He does it all wrong!” He again faced the prisoner with an air of making a last attempt. “Now look-a-here, Homer, when I say, ‘Guilty or not guilty?’ you want to up an’ say, ‘Not guilty.’ Don’t you see?”
“Not guilty,” said Homer, at once.
“No, no, no. Wait till I ask you. Now wait.” He called out, pompously, “Pards, if this prisoner before us is guilty, what shall be his fate?”
All those well-trained little infants with one voice sang out, “Death!”
“Prisoner,” continued the chief, “are you guilty or not guilty?”
“But look-a-here,” argued Homer, “you said it wouldn’t be nothin’ that would hurt. I—”
“Thunder an’ lightnin’!” roared the wretched chief. “Keep your mouth shut, can’t ye? What in the mischief—”
But there was an interruption from Jimmie Trescott, who shouldered a twin aside and stepped to the front. “Here,” he said, very contemptuously, “let me be the prisoner. I’ll show ’im how to do it.”
“All right, Jim,” cried the chief, delighted; “you be the prisoner, then. Now all you fellers with guns stand there in a row! Get out of the way, Homer!” He cleared his throat, and addressed Jimmie. “Prisoner, are you guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” answered Jimmie, firmly. Standing there before his judge—unarmed, slim, quiet, modest—he was ideal.
The chief beamed upon him, and looked aside to cast a triumphant and withering glance upon Homer Phelps. He said: “There! That’s the way to do it.”
The twins and Dan Earl also much admired Jimmie.
“That’s all right so far, anyhow,” said the satisfied chief. “An’ now we’ll—now we’ll—we’ll perceed with the execution.”
“That ain’t right,” said the new prisoner, suddenly. “That ain’t the next thing. You’ve got to have a trial first. You’ve got to fetch up a lot of people first who’ll say I done it.”
“That’s so,” said the chief. “I didn’t think. Here, Reeves, you be first witness. Did the prisoner do it?”
The twin gulped for a moment in his anxiety to make the proper reply. He was at the point where the roads forked. Finally he hazarded, “Yes.”
“There,” said the chief, “that’s one of ’em. Now, Dan, you be a witness. Did he do it?”
Dan Earl, having before him the twin’s example, did not hesitate. “Yes,” he said.
“Well, then, pards, what shall be his fate?”
Again came the ringing answer, “Death!”
With Jimmie in the principal role, this drama, hidden deep in the hemlock thicket, neared a kind of perfection. “You must blindfold me,” cried the condemned lad, briskly, “an’ then I’ll go off an’ stand, an’ you must all get in a row an’ shoot me.”
The chief gave this plan his urbane countenance, and the twins and Dan Earl were greatly pleased. They blindfolded Jimmie under his careful directions. He waded a few paces into snow, and then turned and stood with quiet dignity, awaiting his fate. The chief marshaled the twins and Dan Earl in line with their sticks. He gave the necessary commands: “Load! Ready! Aim! Fire!” At the last command the firing party all together yelled, “Bang!”
Jimmie threw his hands high, tottered in agony for a moment, and then crashed full length into the snow—into, one would think, a serious case of pneumonia. It was beautiful.
He arose almost immediately and came back to them, wondrously pleased with himself. They acclaimed him joyously.
The chief was particularly grateful. He was always trying to bring off these little romantic affairs, and it seemed, after all, that the only boy who could ever really help him was Jimmie Trescott. “There,” he said to the others, “that’s the way it ought to be done.”
They were touched to the heart by the whole thing, and they looked at Jimmie with big, smiling eyes. Jimmie, blown out like a balloon-fish with pride of his performance, swaggered to the fire and took seat on some wet hemlock boughs. “Fetch some more wood, one of you kids,” he murmured, negligently. One of the twins came fortunately upon a small cedar tree the lower branches of which were dead and dry. An armful of these branches flung upon the sick fire soon made a high, ruddy, warm blaze, which was like an illumination in honor of Jimmie’s success.
The boys sprawled about the fire and talked the regular language of the game. “Waal, pards,” remarked the chief, “it’s many a night we’ve had together here in the Rockies among the b’ars an’ the Indyuns, hey?”
“Yes, pard,” replied Jimmie Trescott, “I reckon you’re right. Our wild, free life is—there ain’t nothin’ to compare with our wild, free life.”
Whereupon the two lads arose and magnificently shook hands, while the others watched them in an ecstasy. “I’ll allus stick by ye, pard,” said Jimmie, earnestly. “When yer in trouble, don’t forgit that Lightnin’ Lou is at yer back.”
“Thanky, pard,” quoth Willie Dalzel, deeply affected. “I’ll not forgit it, pard. An’ don’t you forgit, either, that Deadshot Demon, the leader of the Red Raiders, never forgits a friend.”
But Homer Phelps was having none of this great fun. Since his disgraceful refusal to be seized and executed he had been hovering unheeded on the outskirts of the band. He seemed very sorry; he cast a wistful eye at the romantic scene. He knew too well that if he went near at that particular time he would be certain to encounter a pitiless snubbing. So he vacillated modestly in the background.
At last the moment came when he dared venture near enough to the fire to gain some warmth, for he was now bitterly suffering with the cold. He sidled close to Willie Dalzel. No one heeded him. Eventually he looked at his chief, and with a bright face said, “Now—if I was seized now to be executed, I could do it as well as Jimmie Trescott, I could.”
The chief gave a crow of scorn, in which he was followed by the other boys. “Ho!” he cried, “why didn’t you do it, then? Why didn’t you do it?” Homer Phelps felt upon him many pairs of disdainful eyes. He wagged his shoulders in misery.
“You’re dead,” said the chief, frankly. “That’s what you are. We executed you, we did.”
“When?” demanded the Phelps boy, with some spirit.
“Just a little while ago. Didn’t we, fellers? Hey, fellers, didn’t we?”
The trained chorus cried: “Yes, of course we did. You’re dead, Homer. You can’t play any more. You’re dead.”
“That wasn’t me. It was Jimmie Trescott,” he said, in a low and bitter voice, his eyes on the ground. He would have given the world if he could have retracted his mad refusals of the early part of the drama.
“No,” said the chief, “it was you. We’re playin’ it was you, an’ it was you. You’re dead, you are.” And seeing the cruel effect of his words, he did not refrain from administering some advice: “The next time, don’t be such a chucklehead.”
Presently the camp imagined that it was attacked by Indians, and the boys dodged behind trees with their stick-rifles, shouting out “Bang!” and encouraging each other to resist until the last. In the meantime the dead lad hovered near the fire, looking moodily at the gay and exciting scene. After the fight the gallant defenders returned one by one to the fire, where they grandly clasped hands, calling each other “old pard,” and boasting of their deeds.
; Parenthetically, one of the twins had an unfortunate inspiration. “I killed the Indy-un chief, fellers. Did you see me kill the Indy-un chief?”
But Willie Dalzel, his own chief, turned upon him wrathfully: “You didn’t kill no chief. I killed ’im with me own hand.”
“Oh!” said the twin, apologetically, at once. “It must have been some other Indy-un.”
“Who’s wounded?” cried Willie Dalzel. “Ain’t anybody wounded?” The party professed themselves well and sound. The roving and inventive eye of the chief chanced upon Homer Phelps. “Ho! Here’s a dead man! Come on, fellers, here’s a dead man! We’ve got to bury him, you know.” And at his bidding they pounced upon the dead Phelps lad. The unhappy boy saw clearly his road to rehabilitation, but mind and body revolted at the idea of burial, even as they had revolted at the thought of execution. “No!” he said, stubbornly. “No! I don’t want to be buried! I don’t want to be buried!”
“You’ve got to be buried!” yelled the chief, passionately. “ ’Tain’t goin’ to hurt ye, is it? Think you’re made of glass? Come on, fellers, get the grave ready!”
They scattered hemlock boughs upon the snow in the form of a rectangle, and piled other boughs near at hand. The victim surveyed these preparations with a glassy eye. When all was ready, the chief turned determinedly to him: “Come on now, Homer. We’ve got to carry you to the grave. Get him by the legs, Jim!”
Little Phelps had now passed into that state which may be described as a curious and temporary childish fatalism. He still objected, but it was only feeble muttering, as if he did not know what he spoke. In some confusion they carried him to the rectangle of hemlock boughs and dropped him. Then they piled other boughs upon him until he was not to be seen. The chief stepped forward to make a short address, but before proceeding with it he thought it expedient, from certain indications, to speak to the grave itself. “Lie still, can’t ye? Lie still until I get through.” There was a faint movement of the boughs, and then a perfect silence.
The chief took off his hat. Those who watched him could see that his face was harrowed with emotion. “Pards,” he began, brokenly—“pards, we’ve got one more debt to pay them murderin’ redskins. Bowie-knife Joe was a brave man an’ a good pard, but—he’s gone now—gone.” He paused for a moment, overcome, and the stillness was only broken by the deep manly grief of Jimmie Trescott.
May, 1900
[Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 100, pp. 963–968.]
* Whilomville Stories.
AN ILLUSION IN RED AND WHITE
Nights on the Cuban blockade were long, at times exciting, often dull. The men on the small leaping dispatch boats became as intimate as if they had all been buried in the same coffin. Correspondents who, in New York, had passed as fairly good fellows sometimes turned out to be perfect rogues of vanity and selfishness, but still more often the conceited chumps of Park Row became the kindly and thoughtful men of the Cuban blockade. Also each correspondent told all he knew, and sometimes more. For this gentle tale I am indebted to one of the brightening stars of New York journalism.
“Now, this is how I imagine it happened. I don’t say it happened this way, but this is how I imagine it happened. And it always struck me as being a very interesting story. I hadn’t been on the paper very long, but just about long enough to get a good show, when the city editor suddenly gave me this sparkling murder assignment.
“It seems that up in one of the back counties of New York State a farmer had taken a dislike to his wife; and so he went into the kitchen with an axe, and in the presence of their four little children he just casually rapped his wife on the nape of the neck with the head of this axe. It was early in the morning, but he told the children they had better go to bed. Then he took his wife’s body out in the woods and buried it.
“This farmer’s name was Jones. The widower’s eldest child was named Freddy. A week after the murder, one of the long-distance neighbors was rattling past the house in his buckboard when he saw Freddy playing in the road. He pulled up, and asked the boy about the welfare of the Jones family.
“ ‘Oh, we’re all right,’ said Freddy, ‘only ma—she ain’t—she’s dead.’
“ ‘Why, when did she die?’ cried the startled farmer. ‘What did she die of?’
“ ‘Oh,’ answered Freddy, ‘last week a man with red hair and big white teeth and real white hands came into the kitchen, and killed ma with an axe.’
“The farmer was indignant with the boy for telling him this strange childish nonsense, and drove off much disgruntled. But he recited the incident at a tavern that evening, and when people began to miss the familiar figure of Mrs. Jones at the Methodist Church on Sunday mornings, they ended by having an investigation. The calm Jones was arrested for murder, and his wife’s body was lifted from its grave in the woods and buried by her own family.
“The chief interest now centered upon the children. All four declared that they were in the kitchen at the time of the crime, and that the murderer had red hair. The hair of the virtuous Jones was gray. They said that the murderer’s teeth were large and white. Jones only had about eight teeth, and these were small and brown. They said the murderer’s hands were white. Jones’s hands were the color of black walnuts. They lifted their dazed, innocent faces, and crying, simply because the mysterious excitement and their new quarters frightened them, they repeated their heroic legend without important deviation, and without the parrotry sameness which would excite suspicion.
“Women came to the jail and wept over them, and made little frocks for the girls, and little breeches for the boys, and idiotic detectives questioned them at length. Always they upheld the theory of the murderer with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. Jones sat in his cell, his chin sullenly on his first vest-button. He knew nothing about any murder, he said. He thought his wife had gone on a visit to some relatives. He had had a quarrel with her, and she had said that she was going to leave him for a time, so that he might have proper opportunities for cooling down. Had he seen the blood on the floor? Yes, he had seen the blood on the floor. But he had been cleaning and skinning a rabbit at that spot on the day of his wife’s disappearance. He had thought nothing of it. What had his children said when he returned from the fields? They had told him that their mother had been killed by an axe in the hands of a man with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands. To questions as to why he had not informed the police of the county, he answered that he had not thought it a matter of sufficient importance. He had cordially hated his wife, anyhow, and he was glad to be rid of her. He decided afterward that she had run off; and he had never credited the fantastic tale of the children.
“Of course, there was very little doubt in the minds of the majority that Jones was guilty, but there was a fairly strong following who insisted that Jones was a coarse and brutal man, and perhaps weak in his head—yes—but not a murderer. They pointed to the children and declared that children could never lie, and these kids, when asked, said that the murder had been committed by a man with red hair, large white teeth, and white hands. I myself had a number of interviews with the children, and I was amazed at the convincing power of their little story. Shining in the depths of the limpid upturned eyes, one could fairly see tiny mirrored images of men with red hair, big white teeth, and white hands.
“Now, I’ll tell you how it happened—how I imagine it was done. Some time after burying his wife in the woods Jones strolled back into the house. Seeing nobody, he called out in the familiar fashion, ‘Mother!’ Then the kids came out whimpering. ‘Where is your mother?’ said Jones. The children looked at him blankly. ‘Why, pa,’ said Freddy, ‘you came in here, and hit ma with the axe; and then you sent us to bed.’ ‘Me?’ cried Jones. ‘I haven’t been near the house since breakfast-time.’
“The children did not know how to reply. Their meager little sense informed them that their father had been the man with the axe, but he denied it, and to their minds everything was a mere great puzzle with no meaning whatever,
save that it was mysteriously sad and made them cry.
“ ‘What kind of a looking man was it?’ said Jones.
“Freddy hesitated. ‘Now—he looked a good deal like you, pa.’
“ ‘Like me?’ said Jones. ‘Why, I thought you said he had red hair?’
“ ‘No, I didn’t,’ replied Freddy. ‘I thought he had gray hair, like yours.’
“ ‘Well,’ said Jones, ‘I saw a man with kind of red hair going along the road up yonder, and I thought maybe that might have been him.’
“Little Lucy, the second child, here piped up with intense conviction. ‘His hair was a little teeny bit red. I saw it.’
“ ‘No,’ said Jones. ‘The man I saw had very red hair. And what did his teeth look like? Were they big and white?’
“ ‘Yes,’ answered Lucy, ‘they were.’
“Even Freddy seemed to incline to think it. ‘His teeth may have been big and white.’
“Jones said little more at that time. Later he intimated to the children that their mother had gone off on a visit, and although they were full of wonder, and sometimes wept because of the oppression of an incomprehensible feeling in the air, they said nothing. Jones did his chores. Everything was smooth.
“The morning after the day of the murder, Jones and his children had a breakfast of hominy and milk.
“ ‘Well, this man with red hair and big white teeth, Lucy,’ said Jones. ‘Did you notice anything else about him?’
“Lucy straightened in her chair, and showed the childish desire to come out with brilliant information which would gain her father’s approval. ‘He had white hands—hands all white——”
“ ‘How about you, Freddy?’
“ ‘I didn’t look at them much, but I think they were white,’ answered the boy.
“ ‘And what did little Martha notice?’ cried the tender parent. ‘Did she see the big bad man?’